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A NOVEL

The Martyted

By

Richard E. Kim

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THE WAR CAME early one morning in June of 1950, and by the time the North Koreans occupied

our capital city, Seoul, we had already left our uni-

versity, where we were instructors in the History of

Human Civilization. I joined the Korean Army, and

Park volunteered for the Marine Corps—^the proud combat outfit that suited his temperament. In a short

time—^because junior cheers died very fast in the early phase erf the war—^we were trained and battle- tested, and we both became officers. We survived, but we were both wounded. The shrapnel of a mortar

shell had grazed my right knee during the defense of

Taegu, and a sniper had shot Park in his left arm in

the mopping-up opoation in Seoul after the Inchon

landing. We both spent some time in the hospital, were both promised medals, and were returned

promptly to our respective duties.

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Park, who was then a first lieutenant, went back

to combat duty somewhere on the eastern front, but

I did not rejoin my antitank company. Someone in

the Army accidentally discovered that I had been a

university instructor and decided to transfer me to an

intelligence unit. When I came out of the hospital in

Pusan, I was sent to Seoul, where I was put in charge

of a section in the Army PoUtical Intelligence, and

was made captain, temporarily, in due conformity with

the table of organization.

In the second week of October, the United Nations

Forces captured Pyongyang, the capital city of the

North Koreans. We moved our headquarters to that city and estabhshed ourselves in a four-storied gray

marble building. My oflBce, which was on the third floor, looked across the street at what remained of

the Central Presbyterian Church. This was a strange

coincidence. It was Park's father's church; he had

been its minister for nearly twenty years.

I knew very little about him; although Park was a

close friend of mine, he had seldom talked to me

about his father. Which was to be expected. His father

had disowned him and, in turn. Park had denounced

his father. Mr. Park was, according to his disowned

son, "a man of fanatical faith," who had "harassed"

him "day and night with his self-righteousness, with

his exaggerated faith, and his obsession with his

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equally obsessive God." On the other hand, Park had

become an atheist after his return from a university

in Tokyo, and abandoned the Christian faith in which

he had been brought up. I suspected that he would

not have denounced his father had not Mr. Park told

his congregation, one Sunday morning from his pulpit,

that his son had gone over to the Devil and that he

had asked the Lord His forgiveness for severing all

earthly ties with his son. That was about ten years

before the war.

Park was aware that his father was missing from

Pyongyang; I had informed him of the disturbing news

soon after I moved to the city, and I had done so in

an unsettled frame of mind. I had come to Pyongyang

in a good mood; for the first few weeks I was in a state

of buoyancy, partly because of the exciting novelty

of finding myself in an enemy city that our victorious

army occupied, and partly because of the irresistible

enthusiasm and affection with which the people of the

city greeted all of us, their liberators. Many of my

fellow officers were natives of Pyongyang and, in the

midst of that delightful emotional chaos following

the liberation, they were able to stage melodramatic yet

heartwarming scenes of reunion with their families,

relatives, and friends, or for that matter, with anyone

whose face they recognized.

I had no acquaintances in the city, and som.etimes

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I felt vaguely envious of these oflBcers. It was at such

times that I felt an urge to go to see Park's father,

though I told myself I had not the slight6st excuse for

doing so. I thought of many reasonable ways in which

I might call on him, yet when I imagined myself actu-

ally knocking on the door of his home and introducing

myself as a good friend of his son's, I could not help

feeling a pecuUar sort of fright. Then I found out that

the Communist secret poUce had arrested him shortly

before the war; and when Army Intelligence let it be

known officially that "an unspecified number of North

Korean Christian ministers" was reported missing and

that the Army "beUeved them to have been kidnapped

by the Reds," I even felt relieved—shamefacedly, of course. So I wrote to Park about it at great length,

but his reply contained nothing but irrelevant matters

—just as I expected—things about his command, about his men, and even about his future plans, but

not a word about his father.

Across the street the church bell clanged. I opened

the window. From the white-blue November sky of

North Korea, a cold gust swept down the debris-ridden

slope, whipping up here and there dazzling snow

flurries, smashing against the ugly, bullet-riddled

buildings of Pyongyang. People who had been digging

in the ruins of their homes stopped working. They